Here we go again. Another “gateway” study has hit the media, only this time, the study originates from the UK and not the gateway crazy US.
I had prior warning that this study was coming late at night, but sadly with work being such a crapfest, I ended up reading it cross-eyed and making ridiculous mistakes in interpretation.
Before we take a closer look at the study itself, I want to draw attention to this statement in the introduction. It"s rather important.
Now that we’re into the 11th year of the most spiteful and damaging social engineering exercise England has ever seen - otherwise known as the smoking ban - I found myself rather bemused by how innocuous the anniversary was.
I wrote about the impending anniversary ahead of time, planning to write another piece on the day; but as these things go, that never happened. It was unsurprising to see the usual cobblers being spouted by various social media accounts using the hashtag #smokefree10.
As with any tobacco control milestone, you’ll hear all kinds of shenanigans bullshit from the usual suspects. But before we get into that, let’s rewind a bit. 10 years in fact.
At the tender and innocent age of 27 (snark), at (oddly enough) this exact time of year I was on the usual lads holiday. A week of sun, sand and lots and lots of beer. Well, it’d be rude not to.
Unsurprisingly, there’s another ‘campaign’ about second hand smoking.
Campaign launched about dangers of children’s exposure to second-hand smoke
I thought that this particular part of the anti-smoker arsenal had long since been over utilised, it turns out I was mistaken.
Y’see, in April this year one particular anti-smoking group kicked the bucket. It became an ex-anti-smoking group. Most folk I know celebrated the demise of Healthier Futures, which followed on from the demise of Smokefree South West - both groups tried a last ditch re-brand in order to stay current with “public health epidemics” - with Fresh NE taking ownership of the Healthier Futures IP.
Today saw the release of the latest set of data for smoking prevalence within the UK from the Office of National Statistics Annual Population Survey and the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey.
As you would expect from the UK, with its generally liberal stance on e-cigarettes, and despite the shitstorm of piss poor media reporting on various studies, stupid legislation proposals, daft bans, and general bullshit; e-cigarettes remain the most common aid for people to move away from tobacco.
As with most debates from tobacco control, regarding plain packaging there remained one, quite crucial, point that was conspicuous by its absence. No one could categorically say that plain packaging would work. Not one person could stand up and claim that drab, olive-green packs with larger warnings would amount to much of a decrease in smoking prevalence. Well, except Debs, but then she’s always had her head in the clouds (it’ll be responsible for 300,000 smokers giving up the ‘deadly weed’ of course. Bravo Bollocks).
Well this is a rather lovely to-do isn’t it?
The smoking ban. Introduced on July 1st 2007 (in England, but the Scots had to go one better and implement it officially on March 26th 2006. Plus Wales did it on April 2nd 2007 – if only it had been a day earlier – and Northern Ireland on April 20th 2007). The ban is now almost 10 years old.
For those that don’t remember how it all came about, a brief history lesson is needed.
Regular readers will of course remember fondly that the EU held another “public consultation” recently, with the closing date of last month. This so-called public consultation was all about the taxation of manufactured tobacco products. Of course, being the EU and with the shiny new Tobacco Products Directive it just had to include the humble e-cigarette, despite (of course) neither the devices themselves, nor the liquid refills containing any actual manufactured tobacco at all - natch.
As I’m sure you’re aware, England has had their ridiculous ban on smoking in cars since September 2015. They even “celebrated” the anniversary this year where there was a totally unremarkable 3% decline in self-reported exposure in kids to smoke in cars - using their own survey figures of course. Now the so-called “ban” in England didn’t apply to Scotland, so instead they had to create their own version of the Orwellian legislation.
Thanks to Dick Puddlecote for reminding me about some more shenanigans from “public health” - this time in Sheffield. I had spotted this in my feed last week from Simon Clark but sadly work and my everyday life got in the way of putting finger to key.
Council chiefs are considering whether to ban lighting up outside hospitals and other NHS buildings, universities, council offices and leisure centres – and they are seeking the public’s views on the proposal.